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Comment by RhodesianHunter | Hacker News Reader

Despite how it sounds, I ask this with zero judgment and pure curiosity.

Why do you care?

The author probably cares about either copy-left or the right to tinker. Some people believe it's important and others don't.

Basically any derivative product out of GPL3 code needs to either be open-source/copy-left, or if it uses the code as a library needs to let end users substitute that library for their own version.

Worse than unimportant, I find copyleft harmful to the developer community as a whole. Software is hardly "free" when you have to bend to the author's demands to license your entire rest of your project under their ideology if you want to use it, and I think we should stop calling it so. Maybe "Conditionally Free Software" instead. You're hardly helping the world releasing libraries in terms that nobody but hobbyists (who are going to rip your code out and replace it if they start making a proprietary product, which is not evil) will find acceptable. It works for the Linux kernel and self-contained applications but that's it.

Copyleft is about maximizing the users's rights, not the developers's rights. Companies can't take linux, put it on a router for sale, and then say that their customers/users aren't allowed to know what's going on on the box in terms of backdoors and spying. The users have a right to look at the source code if they wish.

It may focus on user's rights, but it still requires technical expertise to exercise half of the 4 freedoms: #1 (inspection & modification) and #3 (distributing your modifications). Merely knowing to ask "can I see the source code" I would put into the "technical user" realm. Overwhelmingly, most people don't know or don't care.

The other two freedoms #0 (freedom to run) and #2 (freedom to share) are readily obvious to non-technical users. "Double click to run" and "drag and drop <on external drive> to copy". Unfortunately, they are also often permitted by non-free/libre software. So non-technical users that can readily see they can do #0 and #2 and generally have no litmus test to further determine whether the software is "free/libre".

This is a case where the ideology's practical concerns hamper its purity. I critique despite generally liking the FLOSS ideal, but it's important to know its flaws.

The users don't have to be technical to benefit from those freedoms though - there's a level of indirection involved. I might not have personally scrutinized every line of the Linux kernel, but knowing that there are tons of people in the world with the ability and motivation to do that inspires confidence.

I am not arguing that one has to be technical in order to benefit from those freedoms. I like FLOSS and agree users in general benefit.

I am saying that your example, for instance, stills falls under the "how does a non-technical user simply verify the software they just downloaded respects their freedoms?" which is an very real educational and cultural problem. For example, see the massive money and numerous gun ranges, gun stores, gun clubs, and other gun-associated organizations in the US that work to educate the "unskilled" general public on "how to be aware, recognize, and exercise their rights and freedoms" under the 2nd Amendment while respecting local laws. Folks generally are 1) aware they have the right and 2) have a low-friction no-special-technical-skilled path to exercising that right. The FLOSS movement is nowhere near that level of educating and making aware non-technical users of their freedoms, their digital rights, and how to then act upon them and exercise them. Folks generally are 1) unaware of libre software and 2) don't have a low-friction no-special-technical-skilled path to exercising that right.

They can take Linux and put it behind a locked bootloader that makes it impossible to replace with your own kernel. Sure you can have the modified sources but you can't do anything with it. Hence GPL3.

Users don't care about any of that, but developers are certainly hindered by restrictive licenses, which in turn hurts users.

I never found a right to see source code compelling as a real right. To read the assembly and modify something they bought, sure, but not an entitlement to the source.

Nobody is forcing you to use GPL code. It is stinking of entitlement to demand that you get to use other people's code regardless of what they think about it.

I don't feel entitled to it, I just consider the prevalence of copyleft bad for the developer community. License however you want, doesn't mean I'm entitled for criticizing it.

What might be stinking of entitlement is the idea users have an inalienable right to source code.

What about the prevalence of proprietary software? You can’t use that for anything without making a contract with the author either.

Users and developers are not different beasts. Users with source code are more likely to become developers. Developers are more likely to become users if they can tinker.

You sound very bitter that a developers that let others use their code gets to pick his license of choice. Should everything by locked down like Microsoft Windows code or an Apple phone? If what you want is for everything to be completely free from licenses instead, just code your own version and release it as freeware. If you only complain and don't then you are just being hypocritical.

>You're hardly helping the world releasing libraries in terms that nobody but hobbyists (who are going to rip your code out and replace it if they start making a proprietary product, which is not evil) will find acceptable

Now you are just trolling.

I'm not bitter, just disappointed in all the wasted developer time that happens because people get caught up in these copyleft ideas. Of course you can pick whatever license you want but that doesn't mean it can't be criticized.

> If you only complain and don't then you are just being hypocritical.

You don't need to be an architect to complain about crumbling bridges, but indeed I have released software under more free licenses.

>wasted developer time

Only if you assume copyleft code would otherwise be available for developers. The other alternative is people who don't want others profiting from their free code just don't release their code.

Well, it's easy to be disappointed in all the wasted developer time because copy left. It's transparent.

It's harder not only to be disappointed but to even notice all the wasted developer time because of closed source code because well it's even obscured how can you as a developer benefit from the code.

I made my site open source so others who like it can take a look at how it works, or give it their own twist. Visitors of my site can see that they have that freedom, but visitors of an adaptation might not know if it’s not stated anywhere.

You're not wrong to request attribution. I don't know why you're getting so much flak.

Lots of people don't like the GPL (I love it myself, for reasons stated in the GP), and seeing it enforced in real time brings that debate up again.

Well I respect the question of GP if nothing then for principle. People should get their shit together and start respecting the license. The state today is horrendous and the culture is evolving into less and less respect of the license. If people don't follow them personally they wont care to follow them professionally either

I can only guess at motivations, but holistically people need to enforce their license terms or they lose their teeth.

Cause it’s his special.

Please read https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.htm.... My understanding is that if you do not enforce your copyright (or copyleft in this case) you can lose the copyright.

Whilst you can lose a trademark for not enforcing it, you cannot lose a copyright by not enforcing it (in the United States).

You are confusing this with trademark, that's completely different thing.

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